Interview with Epics Tim Sweeny

[pjbliverpool]

Forgive me if im wrong, but didn't MS just recently "sell" it's 10th million unit (in March), where sell means actually shipped to stores, not sold?

I got the figures from here but yes, your correct that it seems the current figure is about 10m shipped which actually doesn't tally up with the quartely figures for some reason.

For the record PC sales in 2006 were about 230m I believe with more than half of those being desktops.

So if anything its probably more like 3.5% of total PC sales in 2006. Or if we discount the laptop market completely and assume it made up half of all PC sales then you are looking at about 7% of all desktops sold last year being equivilent to 360 sales.

 

[Rangers]

MS had 10.4m shipped by 12/31/06.

11m by 3/07.

Forecast 12m by end June 07.

Small variation in these numbers wont matter much to the overall point,

 

[Quaz51]

Strangehold use MSAA 2x in the X360 version
UE3 or UE2.x?

 

[Geoson]

Well, we all know at some point consoles will be surpassed by PC in technical terms, that isn't new. I mean, the PS3 was beaten in raw graphics power when it was released. The 360 was beaten in graphics power shortly after it's released. Some consoles that were delayed were beaten by their graphics before they're even released. But, the good thing about consoles are is that they are far more user friendly than PC. Just pop in the game and the way you go. PCs, there are a lot of tweakings (patches, drivers, etc etc) that you have to get it right before enjoying a seamless, undisturbed gaming experience. I mean, they both have their strengths and weakenesses, consoles are much cheaper and get reasonable performance on games (well they should since they are closed systems), and PC are much more expensive but will get you the latest and greatest audio/visual experience, however, some frustrations may happen (Vista causes a lot of issues for me). I personally own the PS3 and a PC that outperforms it, however, i never see the console as inferior. (GT4 on the PS2 still impresses me even till this day) PC and consoles are both big markets, neither will die.

 

[NRP]

PCs will always have the edge. That won't change. However, this generation of consoles has really narrowed the gap (visually anyway) between PCs and consoles imo. Now hopefully they will get some AAA games with what has traditionally been a PC scope and game play.

 

[betan]

Strangehold use MSAA 2x in the X360 version

Any shot/reference for that?
You sure it's not edge blur like filter?

 

[Geoson]

Yeah, the solutions for consoles are pretty much derived from PCs...I mean, PS3 has a lot of PC components in it, well modified versions. CELL is really different and it is currently used in blade servers. But the RSX really is just a modified 7800gtx. Everything about the PS3 is related to PCs in some way. The only thing different is that consoles will have a measurable peak power and PCs will never have that. Provided that you do regular upgrades and an overhaul every five years.

 

[archangelmorph]

PCs will always have the edge. That won't change. However, this generation of consoles has really narrowed the gap (visually anyway) between PCs and consoles imo. Now hopefully they will get some AAA games with what has traditionally been a PC scope and game play.

Sorry i'm intruigued by all this "PC is the best" talk going on in this thread..

So humour me..

What Exactly do you mean by "what has traditionally been a PC scope & gameplay"...?

 

[Quaz51]

Any shot/reference for that?
You sure it's not edge blur like filter?

yes i'm sure

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What Exactly do you mean by "what has traditionally been a PC scope & gameplay"...?

Presumably something like MMOs/online gaming, such as NCSoft's creations which are coming to PS3. There's nothing like Guild Wars on consoles, and those sorts of games have been the prerogative of PCs.

 

[archangelmorph]

Presumably something like MMOs/online gaming, such as NCSoft's creations which are coming to PS3. There's nothing like Guild Wars on consoles, and those sorts of games have been the prerogative of PCs.

Isn't guild wars just the same as Phantasy Star Online in terms of the MMO-style?

I played that game on my Xbox...

I guess you could say that kind of scope is "traditionally" within the realm of PC gaming however it's only due to the limitations of the business model of the closed nature of the console platforms that have oft' caused MMO-devs to steer clear of the "living-room-gaming" space..

 

[NRP]

Presumably something like MMOs/online gaming, such as NCSoft's creations which are coming to PS3. There's nothing like Guild Wars on consoles, and those sorts of games have been the prerogative of PCs.

I kind of had BF2/SF/2412 type games in mind. Those really nice looking, huge sandbox games with lots of customization and vehicular/aircraft combat. But your example works too. I know BF2 was ported to consoles, but it wasn't at all the same game, at least it didn't look or feel like the same game to me. I'm sure it is really just a hardware resource issue, although perhaps publishers/devs still feel the console crowd are kids that don't want/can't handle deeper gameplay experiences.

In the past, it was very easy to see the difference between an Xbox/PS2 game and a PC game. These days, it's not always so easy. The console visuals are already there (or close enough), now we need the more advanced/sophisticated game play that has traditionally been the realm of PC games.